


April (A Burden for the Lost)

by Half_SubmergedinPurgatory, Itherael



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Gen, Literary References & Allusions, Natural OEG Amon, OEG!Amon, Prompt Fic, References to Torture, Russian Donato
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-22
Updated: 2016-09-22
Packaged: 2018-08-16 17:33:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8111197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Half_SubmergedinPurgatory/pseuds/Half_SubmergedinPurgatory, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Itherael/pseuds/Itherael
Summary: Natural OEG!Amon was left on Donato's doorstep as a baby in Russia. This has a ripple effect on TG canon as Amon finds his way to Anteiku.(((This fic is full of literary references and super self-indulgent. A bunch of chapters were written by http://iterael.tumblr.com/ AKA Itherael on this website)))





	1. April is the Cruellest Month

April was the cruellest month in Donato’s opinion. Living things were forced to spring forth from dead earth and the weather grew warm enough for people to wander ( _whenever Donato thought of Russia, he thought of the nomadic ghouls that stalked its lands)_. Desires dormant in the winter budded and blossomed.   
  
People abandoned children on his doorstep.  
  
The baby seemed to be newborn - still pink and sinfully pure. Donato would’ve been tempted to take a bite if there wasn’t something off about the baby. It didn’t smell quite right ( _he’d handled enough human babies to know_ ) or look like it should.   
  
Only one eye was as blue as the winter sky. The other, the left, was as bright as a fire when light shone directly on it, a complex network of veins far more entangled than a human’s revealing themselves in oranges and reds.  
  
It was a kakugan. How…unusual.  
  
Where he would usually have devoured the child ( _nobody asked after these infants_ ), he decided to keep it ( _ **him**_ ). Life in the Russian countryside was beginning to bore him anyway.

* * *

After a month, Donato was asked by a farmer,  
  
“What’s your little one’s name?”  
  
And had to think of an answer. The child had many names, none of which were polite, and Donato had never bothered to think of just one. Ghouls were transitory creatures. He had always considered the baby one as well.   
  
He told the farmer,   
  
“Amon.”  
  
As a little joke ( _a demon, a God, either an Egyptian or Christian name depending on his spelling, a little dig at the history of his species_ ). He never expected it to stick.

* * *

The child had charmed the townspeople by the time he was finally able to speak. It was disconcerting. Though Donato had him wearing an eyepatch, he never plucked it off or knocked it astray like a normal baby. The people never questioned it either.   
  
It had been a game originally: how long will it take for people to notice?   
  
However, so long had passed ( _three years, perhaps?_ ) by now that Donato’s heart squeezed with anticipation ( _anxiety_ ) when a hand strayed too close to Amon’s face or the patch fluttered a bit in the strong breezes. His muscles would clench when Amon eyed a particularly tasty person with childish curiousity.   
  
Against his more entertaining desires, Donato taught Amon what he was.   
  
He even settled on a spelling for his name ( _seeing that little hand tracing the letters was surely something…_ ).

* * *

The patch finally came off when Amon was five. It happened in April and Donato had to laugh.  
  
His church was burned to the ground but he knew that the lilacs would come back. They’d rise from the ashes like nothing had ever stood there. Amon’s tears might even encourage them to grow faster.   
  
April was the cruellest month.

* * *

Japan had…rules. Of course, none of them applied to one-eyes, and so Donato got Amon to do some little chores for him. Spook people out of the territory, terrorize some investigators in the night, flash his newly unveiled kagune a few times ( _”it hurts, papa!” had stirred his heart, but Donato was determined to crush weaknesses…in both himself and his son_ ).   
  
It worked beautifully. The rumours wrapping around the 20th ward caused chaos wherever they stepped.   
  
They would’ve died many times if Donato weren’t so imposing ( _an ukaku spreading like ‘angel wings’ from his back according to Amon. The description amused him enough that Donato gave him his second name - Koutarou. His shining son_ ).   
  
However, there was a greater force than him at work in the ward. One that was familiar with one-eyes. One that had created the first.   
  
Meeting Yoshimura was a little like meeting God, if God were an old man too world-weary to inspire Donato to fight. He gave sermons like God, certainly, and was strong enough to rain fire and brimstone on the planet. He was a bit too New Testament for Donato’s taste, but he offered Amon ( _Koutarou now_ ) answers that Donato was too interested in to refuse.   
  
Together, he and Koutarou became known as ‘Angel’ and ‘Demon’. It never stopped being funny.

* * *

Anteiku was making Donato soft. The 20th ward was soft. It was full of spiky children and angry insects, but it was still gentille in comparison to the wastelands Donato knew from childhood.   
  
It was difficult to be a chess master when no one was on the board.   
  
So it came to pass that Donato laid slaughter to 13th ward, summoning cannibals to come at him, not knowing that angels were originally meant to inspire terror over awe.  
  
When the dust settled, he encountered his Old Testament God at last. She offered him the chessboard he wanted. She offered him a new name.  
  
Koutarou was only seven when his Father, the ‘Bishop’, left him behind.  
  
( _Donato made it fast and painful with the idle idea that Koutarou would never forget. He hoped that he’d hunt him down for summoning the mob to the 20th ward_ )  
  
( _It would be fun_ )  
  
( _He would be lonely_ )

* * *

Koutarou grew up with Anteiku, human food filling his diet in his teens, replacing the blood and gore of the bloody years of his childhood ( _fighting his way across the 20th ward before Anteiku, then fighting off the goons from the 13th that Father had provoked_ ). His unique constitution allowed him to attend school easily.   
  
He had trouble making friends his own age, but Grandpa’s ( _Yoshimura’s_ ) customers loved him. He desperately wanted to go home at the end of every day ( _the loneliness wrapping around him at school reminded him too strongly of the days only Father was at his side_ ). Once he’d returned to the cafe, work or training with his grouchy uncle would obliterate his thoughts for another day.   
  
Uncle Yomo told him that he was very strong and that he didn’t need much training, however Koutarou disagreed. He wasn’t going to eat ghouls to form a kakuja, so he had to be faster, smarter, and more powerful than other ghouls.   
  
Besides, Yomo was an ukaku. He had all kinds of tricks to teach Koutarou. He wasn’t going to give up on training so fast ( _he enjoyed hearing Yomo’s gruff laughter or the backhanded praise he’d receive_ ).   
  
At 16, Yomo told him he’d be the bulkiest ukaku to ever live. Upon hearing that, Uta gave him a new mask. He’d expected it to be a strange joke ( _considering some of Uta’s past ‘gifts’_ ), but it was actually…touching.   
  
“Dragons are the biggest flying things around, yeah?”  
  
Uta had said, nudging the blue scaled leather towards him. It fit perfectly, both with his bat-like wings ( _he’d been called Demon so many times that Dragon was a vast improvement_ ) and his massive physique. He was grateful.  
  
Then, the new kid came to Anteiku and Koutarou was ever more grateful. Touka’s rampant chaos made him need a mask much more than before.

* * *

Touka made him question all the things Yoshimura had shielded him from. Koutarou knew ghouls could carry out atrocities ( _Father, the people they’d killed, the tiny bones that lined their soups when he was young-_ ). He knew that humans could too, on some level.  
  
He’d just never considered how unfair it was.   
  
Or how unfair _**he**_ was.   
  
He looked out for Touka in school as best he could, but whenever he saw her choking back her friend’s meals…he thought about injustice. He thought about standing for something. He thought about making sure she didn’t ever die.  
  
Koutarou followed Touka on her Dove killing expeditions. He got stronger to stop her at every corner. He wrestled her into submission again and again ( _breaking his jaw, cracking some teeth, generally getting his ass kicked by a 14-year-old rage monster_ ).   
  
They formed a bit of a friendship, pinning investigators down without killing them, hiding the bodies that Koutarou couldn’t prevent Touka from taking down…

* * *

The tentative friendship between Koutarou and Touka was called into question the day she shoved meat into the face of a crying kid in an alley, one who spat insults at her, tears streaming down his face ( _reminding him of something that he didn’t want to name, of April, of ashes, of lost homes and families_ ).  
  
Koutarou should’ve calmed her down, but he was in shock. The kid’s kakugan had him feeling…he wasn’t sure. He had thought he was the only one-eyed ghoul. He was still pretty sure he was the only natural one.   
  
The kid called himself human and Koutarou felt his heart break.  
  
He never thought he’d see him again.

* * *

Touka dragged the kid, unconscious and accompanied by a blond human ( _who wasn’t as unconscious as he appeared_ ), into Anteiku like naughty kittens. She literally held them by the scruffs of their necks.   
  
It was then that Koutarou knew they had been adopted. Well, maybe not the human ( _who craftily kept his eyes shut, despite the glitter of brown Koutarou had seen earlier_ ).   
  
“Can I kill them?”  
  
Touka asked Yoshimura in her most insincere tone. Koutarou almost wanted him to say yes, to keep the one-eye away from himself ( _he didn’t want another person to betray him - another one of his vulnerabilities exposed and stomped on_ ), however Yoshimura simply laughed.   
  
The kid’s name was Kaneki Ken. He changed Koutarou’s life.

* * *

Wandering the halls of Aogiri’s stronghold, Donato chuckled to himself. Jason had captured a one-eye. A sweet, strong-minded, weak little one-eye.   
  
His screams brought to mind Jesus on the cross. His whispered words to his visitors ( _his unwilling torturers_ ) bled salvation all over the floor. He spoke of literature to Donato, quoting his favourite poems as if he _**knew**_ him.  
  
 _“What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow  
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,  
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only   
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,   
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,   
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only   
There is shadow under this red rock,  
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),   
And I will show you something different from either   
Your shadow at morning striding behind you   
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;   
**I will show you fear in a handful of dust**.”_  
  
He’d recited as Donato picked at his weaknesses with words ( _only when no one could see…he wouldn’t want Jason to see him playing with his toys_ ). Despite himself, Donato found himself replying,  
  
“Hmmm, yes. April is the cruellest month, isn’t it, Ken?”  
  
Yes, this was a child that housed a demon and a God. One that made the adults fall in love before he could even speak.  
  
He would summon Donato’s shining son to him.  
  
It made him laugh ( _even as his heart squeezed in…anticipation. Yes, it had to be anticipation_ ).


	2. Pater Noster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Itherael's chapter!

_Pater Noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum…_

A lifetime had passed since his prayers were filled with the horror ( _the cold grip of fear threatened to consume his entire being_ ) Amon felt now. Prayers muttered under his breath, making things up with God when the hunt became too much, when the Doves and ghouls alike ran after them ( _Fath-_ ), seeking revenge for their fallen comrades.

Things had changed, but they hadn't. Now he feels the horror of losing someone dear by the cruel hands of another more powerful being. The impotency, the feeling of having his hands tied and the world _keeps moving on and it doesn’t stop why doesn’t it STOP_.

He prays, not for himself, but for **_his_** safety. Prays to a God he’s not sure he believes anymore, but oh, he begs to give **_him_** strength, to wait a just a little longer.

But he still feels it’s too late.

* * *

_He remembers arriving to Anteiku, seeing the destruction of the place he called home, seeing Touka nursing her wounds… blood splattered walls, a familiar smell and something missing._ **Someone** _missing._

“I don’t think we’ll be able to have any more contact with Kaneki-kun”

_He remembers the rage, the pure hatred, the desperation and the **need** of the hunt. But he remains frozen in place, too shocked to do or say anything. However, Nishio was pretty vocal with his desires, and Amon agreed wholeheartedly with them. And so did Touka and Hinami._

_But when Tsukiyama walked in (no trust, no faith)…_

_His body had always gave the people a different idea, but he was still faster than the average ukaku ghoul, and stronger than the average ghoul, so it took all of them to hold him down, and stop him from killing the man._

_The apparition of Yomo, Uta and Itori (Amon still shudders with the memory of his 26th birthday celebration and the insanely high amount of alcohol she provided for the occasion, but that memory doesn’t bring embarrassment anymore. No, it doesn’t even distract him from the_ now _) was a blessed interruption._

_When they all left, Yoshimura approached him and his words made him realize something he hadn’t thought about._

_“The **Bishop** is going to be there, Amon-kun”_

_His world stopped once again._

* * *

Ten days, and they’re in the enemy’s playground on a _~~suicide~~_ rescue mission.

( _”It’s too late, but he can’t be dead, he can’t!”_ ) 

Ten days and he had barely slept. Ten days with his nights filled with nightmares, hands trying to stop him and the agony-filled screams coming from a voice _, oh so familiar_ , and the laughter of someone he thought he would never hear again.

The cold is clinging to him, and it’s not just the weather. The cold is spreading through his veins, leaving him frozen and heartless. _Just act, kill whoever stands in your way and **GET. HIM. BACK**_.

He hates it, obviously. He has gone back to the days where hunting and killing was the only way to stay alive ( _and isn’t this similar, Koutarou?_ ), when the survival of the strongest was the only rule he knew. He’s no longer the Dragon.

No, he’s the Demon.

He could feel Touka’s concern over him. He wants to laugh at that, remembering when the roles where reversed, when she was the one consumed by rage and he was always there to stop her. But he’s not consumed by rage, _not yet_ , he’s just cold.

He wants to be warm again, and if he needs to adopt the Demon mask once again, so be it.

* * *

They split up, trying to cover the whole place. Amon decides to go alone, and Yoshimura knows better than trying to convince him otherwise. Touka looks at him, grabbing his hand.

“Find him and come back. _Both_ of you”

Amon just nods. It feels like his ability to speak has disappeared or he just only doesn’t trust his voice. Doesn’t trust himself to not sound emotionless to her.

They don’t say good bye, hell, they don’t even wish themselves “Good luck”. They know why they’re here, in this cursed place, with enemies from both sides ( _Amon hears the screams of CCG agents being hurt, mutilated, killed. The scent of blood and death is heavy in the air_ ), and Amon prays for their survival.

He hopes, _and oh God, **please**_ , he hopes that they all can go back home in one piece.

* * *

The Bin Brothers are fast, but Amon is faster. Their hits never land and they never see him until it’s too late.

The investigators behind him are too terrified to even move and he knows that the reason isn’t about the brothers - it’s about him. He has lost count of how many have fallen because of him. Amon knows that he looks every bit of the monsters the CCG fears.

He doesn’t have the time to say anything to them. The dead bodies of the Bin Brothers are at his feet, and just as silently as he killed them he disappears.

* * *

The room's floors are checkered tile splattered with blood.

It hold the dying body of a monstrosity, muttering numbers.

And the smell, God, _the smell_.

“At long last, the Prodigal son returns.”

The voice shatters everything around him. The fear, the nausea and the understatement of what had happened in this piece of Hell on Earth… all that loses its meaning when he hears the voice.

The Bishop is standing, a few meters away from him, with the serenity of his memories and the soft smile of the past. A smile that soon turns into a cruel smirk.

Amon feels like he's 7 years old again, begging for his Father to not leave him alone in this cold, cruel world. He’s back at that horrible afternoon in an April so many years ago.

He’s no longer the Dragon, no longer the Demon. He’s not even an abomination anymore.

He’s just a scared child.

“He often recited poetry, did you know? He has a voice made for story-telling,” Donato  _ ~~Father~~_ says, “the soft cadence, the strength when the story needs it… It made it even more sweeter when he _broke_ ”

Amon doesn’t need to ask about who he’s talking about. The coldness in his veins disappears and becomes an inferno. Amon is burning in rage and hatred.

And he loses himself. Let’s the sweet promise of retribution take over.

_Vengeance shall be mine._

God is not a merciful being. **_No, God is cruel._**

* * *

God decides to walk among mortals, seeing the destruction with her own eyes. She doesn’t know why she had the need to abandon the safety of distance, but she feels like she needs to be here.

The Bishop is here.

The Egg, waiting to be hatched, is also here.

And she has a feeling that her long awaited Prophet might be also in her Kingdom.

 

Amon doesn’t ask questions, he just lashes out.

And Donato finally has the answer to the question of many years ago. Amon is both a demon and a God. He had earned that name through blood, tears, and pain.

He’s everything his God wants.

Amon is the Prophet she desires, the one that she wants to mold to her ideologies. The one that will change the world.

The heart of the Bishop stops at the sudden realization. Not because of anticipation...it had been for fear.

But it can’t be stopped, not now, not ever. His God finally has a rival for her chess game.

* * *

Eto smiles, seeing the fight between father and son.

She can feel the hate radiating from the younger man, the pure strength, his unique scent.

Her King, her Prophet, is finally here.

* * *

Even if Amon had refused to cannibalize, he’s strong. Stronger than any ghoul Donato had ever known.

Well, perhaps with God as the only exception.

Donato barely escapes. He can’t hurt his son physically ( _no matter how hard he tries, it’s impossible_ ), but his words cut deeper than any blade.

Donato knows that this time there’s no forgiveness.

* * *

“Deuteronomy 18:17-19″ Eto says, sitting near the Bishop. “’ _The Lord said to me: “What they say is good. I will raise up for them a prophetlike you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him.I myself will call to account anyone who does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name.’”_

Her smile is huge ( _terrifying_ ).

“You have brought me my Prophet. I’m thankful, Donato-san”

Donato only nods. She’s not going to stop until she has his son under her command. He prays, prays for Amon to be faster than her, prays for his son.

But he knows, no matter how much he prays, he knows that God will have her Messiah sooner than later.

* * *

Amon is relieved to see everyone safe, but he feels empty.

Kaneki is not with them, and Fath- _Donato_ works with _them_.

He’s empty-handed. He feels like he has lost everything in one night.

And he doesn’t dare to feel hope anymore.


	3. A Game of Chess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one's mine. Again, heavy inspiration was drawn from The Wasteland.

 

After Aogiri, time slips by Koutarou without recognition. A long winter passes him by, marked in his memory only by Touka’s icy hands and the aching cough Yoshimura had developed, before the shock of loss began to fade.   
  
It was April and Koutarou had never felt colder.

Reports of dead Doves floated through Anteiku’s empty halls like dust. Somehow, without his noticing, Touka had completely stopped waitressing ( _memories of her cold hands, waxy and white, lined with scratches from the ice outside, haunted him_ ).  
  
“Murder is my new profession.”  
  
She told him snidely when he asked. Her eyes glimmered with tears forever, and he could tell what she really wanted to say:  
  
“You were gone.”  
  
Because he had been. He’d been lost in his head, walking through the snarling sparse forests of his childhood, hunting down his childhood hideaways. Instead of old comforts ( _dead trees, the red rock over water, abandoned places that had sheltered him_ ), all he found was Her.  
  
The Bishop’s God had whispered cruel words to him in that checkered room ( _a chessboard he had never meant to play on_ ). Her voice had come from everywhere and nowhere at once ( _from the ceiling, from beneath the floors_ ).   
  
“The Bishop tells the truth,”  
  
She’d said, her tone mockingly sweet,   
  
“His voice was made for storytelling. He had a knack for delivering the Bishop’s favourite…”  
  
Her pause was loaded and tense,  
  
“And my least favourite.”  
  
It was what followed that irked Koutarou, that dug underneath his fingernails like dirt or blood that wouldn’t wash out, and had sent him spiralling into the cold.  
  
_“Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair_  
_Spread out in fiery points,_  
 _Glowed into words, then would be savagely still._  
 _‘My nerves are bad tonight, Yes, bad. **Stay with me.**_  
 _**Speak to me.** Why do you never speak?_  
 _**Speak.**_  
 _What are you thinking of? What thinking? What._  
 _I never know what you are thinking. Think.”_

Those words were poignantly lonely. They scraped against his nerves even now, calling to mind his desperately lonely childhood ( _it was April, it was always April, every breath he drew stained with ash and rain and lilac-_ ).   
  
_“I think we are in the rats alley,  
Where the dead men lost their bones.   
‘What is that noise?’  
The wind under the door.  
‘What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?’  
Nothing again, nothing.”_  
  
The Bishop’s God knew Koutarou’s childhood fears. She’d felt them herself ( _eating the dead, losing yourself to a feral sense of self-preservation, the way he’d always felt when Donato made him go out alone…a Demon…a Demon…the Demon_ ).  
  
Koutarou understood God. Their least favourite words were the same. Kaneki had wielded those same sentences against him once, his eyes fever-bright with starvation, when Koutarou had tried to convince him that he wasn’t alone.  
  
Their similarity scared him.  
  
Touka was staring at him now, her hands shaking like a leaf, and Koutarou dragged himself out of his own head ( _though his body kept getting colder and colder_ ).  
  
“I’m here now, Touka. I won’t leave you alone.”  
  
Koutarou whispered, drawing her into his arms and ignoring the way she cringed ( _Kaneki had been the last one to say those words_ ). Though he felt a chill, the bone-aching chill of black water in winter, Koutarou thought he could find warmth again.  
  
He still had a purpose. He could still defend Touka, Yoshimura, Yomo…  
  
He was still the dragon.  
  
He thought he could be fine. 

* * *

Koutarou had also thought Kaneki Ken was dead.   
  
Kaneki Ken wasn’t dead.

* * *

Past midnight on the last day of April, soaked in rain and tired to his very soul, Koutarou caught the tail-end of a sentence. It was spoken in a voice he thought he would never hear again.  
  
_“-but there is no water…”_  
  
Amon fought his urge to shiver, to move, or even to breathe. The voice was faint and he needed to hear.  
  
_“Who is the third who walks always beside you?  
When I count, there are only you and I together  
But when I look ahead up the white road  
There is always another one walking beside you  
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded  
I do not know whether a man or a woman  
—But who is that on the other side of you?”_  
  
Poetry. It was…it couldn’t…  
  
A white-haired figure ghosted around the corner, black robes stiff and heavy with water.  
  
“They call me The Egg now.”  
  
The figure called out, a sad little smile playing around their lips as Amon stared,   
  
“I call myself the Hanged Man, though.”  
  
Amon took a half-step forward, wanting desperately to ( _hold him, keep him, never let him leave again-_ ) do something, but Kaneki’s eyes unfocused and his smile fell away.  
  
”I am a ghoul, Koutarou.”  
  
Once, Kaneki had called himself human and Koutarou had been hurt. It had reinforced to him that he, as a half-ghoul, was alone. However, as Koutarou felt his heart break over Kaneki Ken for the second time, he almost wished…  
  
He wished that this burden could be his alone.  
  
_(’My nerves are bad tonight…_  
_Stay with me…_  
 _Speak to me…_  
 _…_  
 _I’ll show you fear in a handful of dust.’_ )


	4. Death Sonnets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poems used: Sonnet XVII by Pablo Neruda, Sonetos de la Muerte (Death Sonnets) and To See Him Again by Gabriela Mistral.

In retrospect, Donato should have know.

He should have know that God wanted a Prophet, but he had been so naive, so blinded by her strength. He had thought that she was going to content herself with the Egg, that the boy was going to break and become what she wanted.

He should have known. You can’t outsmart a God.

She was a brilliant strategist, after all. The pieces on the chessboard had been carefully placed, each movement calculated with flawless precision, and the moment the boy was captured, the moment _he_ walked into the battlefield, she had claimed the victory she had worked so hard for.

 _Checkmate_.

The worst part of it, even if he was responsible for this mess ( _in some degree_ ), is that he still wanted to see what she was going to do.

That’s why he had let her confuse his boy with her words, cloud his judgement and drag him to solitude, to have him at her mercy. Donato wanted to see how her words would twist Koutarou, see the path he was going to take, see the world he was going to create.

And Koutarou started to crack. It was a slow process, but the words of God started to make him doubt everything. He remained strong, during most of the time, but there were times when her words reached his heart.

His boy was different. No longer the bright eyed kid that followed him around, or the Demon seeking for vengeance. No, the look in his eyes reminded the Bishop of the child he left behind all those years ago, the lifeless eyes that haunted his nights.

Donato feels responsible for this, but he can’t stop. Not anymore.

* * *

Amon is lost between the thin line of reality and fantasy. The world is a messy thing around him, and there are few things anchoring him to reality. The strong smell of coffee and Touka fighting with Nishiki over some petty thing, Hinami’s small hand in his, the words of God, the voice of a young man reciting poetry.

 _“I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,_  
_or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off._  
 _I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,_  
 _in secret, between the shadow and the soul”_

A small room, with books scattered on the floor, a soft bed and thin fingers playing with his hair. Mistral and Neruda’s words in the air, talking about love and heartbreak, of death and loneliness. A small piece of heaven on Earth, a soft smile directed at him, with the worries and pain locked outside.

 _“I love you as the plant that never blooms_  
_but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;_  
 _thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,_  
 _risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.”_

An eyepatch and a grey eye, muffled voices from the other room (apparently someone decided to watch a horror film, _again_ ), a soft laugh and a “I better go to see them.”

Koutarou just takes the other’s hand to kiss his knuckles. “Stay here”, he whispers.

 _“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where._  
_I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;_  
 _so I love you because I know no other way than this:”_

He knows that soon enough the door will burst open, with a scared Hinami begging to stay with them in the room, soon followed by an equally scared Banjou. Kaneki will just laugh and allow them in, with Amon’s head still in his lap and reading his book out loud.  
  
_“where I does not exist, nor you,_  
_so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,_  
 _so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.”_

* * *

Kaneki keeps his secrets, drifting away from Amon’s life for days or even weeks. Amon means a safe place, something he doesn’t want to see blood stained.

He keeps the Ghoul restaurant a secret, and begs to his team to not let Amon know about what happened in Kanou’s lab.

He doesn’t want to see the look of fear in Koutarou’s face when he learns what Kaneki is capable of doing, of how he lost control and almost killed those investigators, how now he has a half-kakuja and how his sanity is barely hanging by a thin thread.

He can’t lose Koutarou, not like this. He doesn’t want him to see the monster he has become.

* * *

God still tells Amon about what happened in the lab.

She’s surprised at the lack of an answer, he only looks at her with a blank face and dead eyes.

“Why?”

“We both keep our secrets. We’re both monsters wearing a human disguise… Living a lie is better than to face reality, don’t you think?”

* * *

_“Is everything okay, Kaneki?”  
_

_“Uh? Oh, ye-yes, Koutarou. Everything is… fine”_

* * *

There’s a book signing that day, and Hinami wants to attend. Kaneki, of course, drags Amon with him.

Their relationship doesn’t have a name, but Kaneki’s hand is in his and it feels just  _right_. He’s distracted, not paying attention to whatever Kaneki and Hinami are talking about (something about the author, he’s not sure), the only thing in his mind is the warm hand in his.

(Amon feels a strange feel of uneasiness, but he’s not going to ruin this for them)

The author makes them wait for a while, and while Amon is still distracted ( _like a schoolgirl in love, goddamn it Amon, you’re 27, get a hold of yourself_ ), the scent of petunias and marigold catches him off guard. It’s a scent that has haunted him for months, a scent that is the omen of loss and insecurity.

The scent of God.

He’s frozen in place when a young woman appears on scene, with a lazy smile on her face and sleepy eyes. Takatsuki Sen, one of Kaneki’s favorite authors. Kaneki doesn’t even notice his change of attitude, but the only thing Amon wants to do is grab them and run away, keep them safe from the words of this cruel God.

Takatsuki’s persona is somewhat sweet, attentive to her fans and ready to answer any question they have. There’s a glint in her eyes when she notices him, and even if it’s just for a moment, he only sees the bandaged monster. It’s hard to finally have a face to go with the voice that crushed his beliefs, and one so young...it’s shocking.

There’s a spark in her eyes when she sees Hinami, and Amon can barely contain himself from releasing his kagune (much too public, too much collateral damage, it’s not worth it), so he keeps himself silent during the whole exchange.

God just smiles at him when they finally leave.

(There’s another scent, one of lotus and chrysanthemum, a glimpse of dyed blond hair. Amon stays silent about that one, too)

* * *

_“Is everything alright, Koutarou?”  
_

_“It’s fine, don’t worry about it”_

* * *

Amon is the bridge between Touka and Kaneki.

Kaneki still doesn’t feel quite ready to face Touka, but he tries through Amon. Short messages, letters and small gifts. Touka accepts them, torn between happiness and anger.

He somehow convinces Kaneki to stay longer in Anteiku, so he can talk with Touka in person after hearing the tale of Yoshimura. A tale that Amon didn’t even know. It gives him a perspective of how God’s life actually was, of her loneliness and anger, her grief and fears.

He can’t hate her after that. Not when they’re so similar, not when Amon feels like he has stolen her place.

He stays with Irimi and Koma while Touka and Kaneki talk, with a cup of coffee in his hand, made with the expertise of years working on a coffee shop (he still remembers the first coffees the Black Dog and the Ape King made, the taste of dirt in his mouth and _how do you even manage to fuck up that badly?_ ). Kaneki and Touka come down together, laughing like old friends and looking like they’ve been crying.

It’s good, because Touka hasn’t lost another person, and Kaneki is realizing that he’s not as alone as he thought.

The Hanged man is starting to heal.

* * *

The announce of the raid planned on the ghoul cafe takes them all by surprise.

Yoshimura begs them to stay out of it, but Amon is not going to lose his home. He’s not going to lose another family.

Amon chooses to stay.

* * *

In another lifetime, Amon Koutarou and Kaneki Ken face each other.

In another lifetime, Amon Koutarou fights against him.

In another lifetime, they try to stop each other.

* * *

In this lifetime, the result is still the same.

* * *

There’s another investigator that faces Kaneki, an investigator who doesn’t have a bit or mercy for the half ghoul.

Amon stays close to Yoshimura, watching in the shadows, waiting for the right moment to attack.

The desire of a better outcome, where they can save the place they got to call a home is fueling them.

It’s not enough.

* * *

God brings her Bishop with her soldiers.

They both know that the Egg and her Prophet are here.

This is the moment she has been waiting for. All the pieces are in their place. Her chess game is about to end.

* * *

Yoshimura falls.

He’s not fast enough, he can’t intervene, _he can’t, he’s going to lose everything and it’s all because his damn weakness…_

The Owl, God, is suddenly there. Koutarou is not going to lose, not when he’s fighting against her.

* * *

_Koutarou, please don’t die, please, please…_

“Yo, Kaneki!”

* * *

The fight between the Owl and the Demon is both beautiful and brutal. Suzuya watches them, amazed with the fluidity of their movements, the desperation in the Demon, the amusement of the Owl.

Shinohara tries to convince him to stay away, that this somehow isn’t their fight anymore, but he simply can’t.

The Demon is ridiculously small in comparison to the Owl, but God, he fights like a madman, like someone who doesn’t have anything left to lose.

Shinohara drags him away from the scene, muttering about them being needed somewhere else. What a pity, it would have been nice to see the outcome of the fight.

* * *

The Bishop keeps his rosary in hand. He’s not a man of faith anymore, but the beads bring some sort of comfort. The prayers come easily, like an old friend that never leaves.

He watches from afar, with fear gripping his heart in a tight knot, how his child fights against God. And no matter how much he prays, he knows how it’ll end.

* * *

Anteiku _**burns**._

* * *

 _“He, is Ainu_  
_His eyebrows sparkling_  
 _His white beard hangs down his chest_  
 _The thatched mats , spread outside of his chise_  
 _Spread softly,_  
 _His splendid attos_  
 _He polishes, crossed-legged, his makiri_  
 _With eyes completely absorbed_  
 _He is Ainu…”_

* * *

The Owl runs away with her prey.

The Demon is left alone, between the ashes of a family and what-ifs.

Deep down, he knows Kaneki is dead. He’s not here, after all.

* * *

Touka is safe with Yomo, and that’s everything that matters.

He’s not surprised to see Hinami in Aogiri's ranks. Not when he has come willingly, too.

God finally got her Prophet.

And this time, he’s not going to fight.

* * *

The words of Gabriela Mistral stay with him for a long time, and he clings to them with every bit of strength he has.

 _“Then I will sprinkle earth and rose dust,_  
_and in the bluish, faint moon dust,_  
 _your light remains will become imprisoned._

_I will leave singing my beautiful vengeance_   
_for the hand of no other woman will_   
_descend to such depths to fight me for_   
_your handful of bones!”_

He’s going to get his vengeance. Against God, against the CCG, against his very weakness.

Amon is going to become a Prophet, the one God wants, but that doesn’t mean he’ll follow her blindly. Only time will tell when the Prophet becomes Judas.

* * *

Haise likes to read poetry, Arima notices. Even if he recommends Takatsuki’s works, he holds poetry dear to his heart.

“I don’t know, but… it makes me feel like home”

Arima doesn’t know how to answer to that.

* * *

In this lifetime, instead of Takizawa, Sasaki Haise fights a ghoul that refuses to show his face.

 _“Oh no. To see him again –_  
_it would not matter where –_  
 _in heaven’s deadwater_  
 _or inside the boiling vortex,_  
 _under serene moons or in bloodless fright!”_

The words caught him off guard, and even if he knows that he has never hear that poem, he knows what’s next, and Haise shouldn’t know them but…

_“To be with him…_   
_every springtime and winter,_   
_united in one anguished knot_   
_around his bloody neck!”_

The ghoul smiles, and time seems to stop.

“It’s good to see you again”

And Haise only **_screams._**


	5. Benediction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Wasteland and Fleurs De Mal were my references here. There's an ask and an explanation for it all at the end of this chapter.

 

In the deep deep dark, the Egg was incubating. Careful hands and careless words try to pull him back from oblivion, back from the birth of the world, from the time that only darkness and stars and dust ( _fear, so much fear_ ) surrounded him. He doesn’t want to be born.  
  
Koutarou’s smile pecked at the shell, though. It pulled at loose threads in his noose. His leash. His protection. **_They were unravelling._  
**  
Suddenly, Koutarou was gone.  
  
Suddenly, the Poet dogged Haise’s every step.

Akira told Haise he had passed out in battle. She told him that a young woman, a ghoul, had been defending his unconscious body. ‘The Rook’, she had said, as if that would mean something to Haise, was dead.  
  
( _A rook, a crow, a chess piece_ )  
  
( _He had known a murder of crows once, hadn’t he?_ )  
  
( _They were Kirishimas_ )  
  
He’d been given time off that he didn’t want. He’d been given space he didn’t want. The Qs asked him questions he couldn’t answer, though the Poet could.  
  
“Why would a ghoul save you? Why didn’t the other ghoul kill you?”  
  
Innocent questions that begged confession. Innocent questions that would strip him of his benediction.  
  
The Poet’s skeletal hand ( _he could still feel it now_ ), cold and dripping with water ( _it was raining, it was always raining, April, April, Ap-)_ , had curled around his shoulder as he whispered,  
  
“I don’t know.”  
  
The Poet had responded ( _or was it just the wind? The wind under the door-_ ) in the words of Baudelair,  
  
“ _Our sins are stubborn; our repentance, faint.  
We take a handsome price for our confession,  
Happy once more to wallow in transgression,  
Thinking vile tears will cleanse us of all taint_.”  
  
And had laughed with rattling bones,  
  
“Benediction, **_dear Reader_** , will not find you.”  
  
Haise did not understand, not the way he was supposed to, not with words or thoughts or…He simply understood the sickness sinking into his very soul.  
  
He was a ghoul.

* * *

“ _Thus she gulps down the froth of her hatred,  
And not understanding the eternal designs,  
Herself prepares deep down in Gehenna  
The pyre reserved for a mother’s crimes_.”  
  
A dream. It was just a dream. His clothing wasn’t wet with anything but sweat ( _it was raining, it was always raining, **fear death by water** -_). The scent of hyacinth and lilac wasn’t real.  
  
“Oh God.”  
  
Haise whimpered, only to be answered by a thoughtful hum,  
  
“Oh God, indeed. You are the child, dear Reader.”  
  
Haise didn’t want to hear this. He didn’t know any God ( _who sat upon her throne, moving her pieces, her rook goes first-_ ).   
  
“ _However, protected by an unseen Angel,  
The outcast child is enrapt by the sun,  
And in all that he eats, in everything he drinks,  
He finds sweet ambrosia and rubiate nectar.  
  
_ (M-e-a-t) _  
  
He cavorts with the wind, converses with the clouds,  
And singing, transported, goes the way of the cross;  
  
_ (”You just bleed salvation all the floor, don’t you, Kaneki-kun?”) _  
  
And the Angel who follows him on pilgrimage  
**Weeps** to see him as carefree as a bird.  
  
All those whom he would love watch him with **fear** ,  
  
_(Where was Hi-) _  
  
Or, emboldened by his tranquility,  
Emulously attempt to wring a groan from him  
_**_And test on him their inhumanity_  
**  
(Tsukiyama, Nishiki, Jason, Et-).”  
  
Each stanza felt like a knife in the gut ( _a crack in the shell_ ). Haise began to scream, trying to cover the words, but soon found them falling from his own mouth.  
  
“ _Praise be to You, O God, who send us **suffering**  
As a divine **remedy for our impurities**  
And as the best and the purest essence  
To prepare **the strong** for holy ecstasies!  
  
**I know that you reserve a place for the Poet**  
Within the blessed ranks of the holy Legions,  
And that you invite him to the eternal feast  
Of **the Thrones** , **the Virtues** , and **the Dominations**_.”  
  
A woman’s voice was calling out to him from afar. She sounded like his mother ( _who was his mother? Who-_ ). He wanted to join her but the path was filled with rose thorns and Haise had always run from pain.   
  
“Your mother would have cast me into the flames, dear Reader.”  
  
The Poet whispers, his words pulling Haise over each sharpened step like rope _(his noose, he missed his noose-_ ),  
  
“God pitied her. God took you instead.”  
  
The roses Haise passed by were tall enough to block out the light. It filtered through their petals like blood in a river ( _ **fear death by water**_ ) and Haise felt cold.  
  
“How’s this for benediction?”  
  
The Poet asked. He tugged Haise’s chin to face the sky. The roses weren’t roses and the water on his skin wasn’t water. Massive eyes sat upon thorny stalks, pricked again and again, shedding tears to Earth and drowning him.  
  
The roses weren’t roses _(fleurs du mal_ ).

* * *

When Haise was the Egg, he had been drowned in guilt until he complied. The Poet told him so. However, he was **_the Reader_** , not **_the Egg_**. He didn’t believe the things he’d been **_told._**    
  
He needed to **_read_** them.

* * *

Koutarou left him notes in The Wasteland. None of them made sense, just like the Poet didn’t make sense. There was something in his words though…  
  
_**A shiver.**_  
  
_“O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,  
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.”_  
  
Haise didn’t understand, but he _**knew**_. He knew he had to go to Koutarou. He knew there was somebody they needed to…fight ( _With? Against?_ ).   
  
_“Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead…”_  
  
Haise was going to die.

* * *

The Reader faced the sea, grey-skinned and stony faced. The rocks dug into his palms but did not make him bleed ( _he wasn’t human_ ). An empty chapel ( _chapel perilous_ ) housed him, ruined and stained by salt and time.  
  
If there was any place the Prophet would be…

* * *

God sat in her high perch, watching the Prophet move like a ghost to his lover’s side. The moonlight kept her a silhouette - just another gargoyle keeping the couple safe from bad spirits.   
  
The thought made her smile.  
  
Darling Kaneki thought that Koutarou was the key to his memories, to ending the bad dreams, to stopping her. She couldn’t wait for him to remember the words he’d once taunted her with when he still had the teeth for it.  
  
( _I have heard the key  
Turn in the door once and turn once only  
We think of the key, each in his prison  
**Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison**_ )  
  
“Come and kill the King.”  
  
She whispered ( _her words lost in the wind_ ),  
  
“Then you’ll have to crown yourself.”

* * *

The CCG burned and the world didn’t understand. It didn’t understand like it was supposed to, the way you can test, the way that can be communicated. Instead, it knew.   
  
_**The world shivered.**_  
  
The Washuus were demons in human skin armed with the guts of their fellow monsters. A mad man was changing people irreversibly and driving them to madness. A famous author was one who spilled it all, smirking with sharp teeth and blood-red eyes.   
  
Everything was wrong. No one was safe.  
  
Not even God.  
  
However…  
  
She had never wanted to be. She wasn’t the king, after all.   
  
In the _**Immortal King Walk**_ , one of the greatest chess games in history, Edward Lasker took a calculated risk. He sacrificed his strongest piece to force his opponent’s king to walk to its death.  
  
_**He sacrificed his queen.**_  
  
God fell, but she was always meant to. The Fall had called her since her conception. However, just like her, the game wasn’t done.  
  
_**Now, the game would never end.**_

* * *

A lone Bishop stood upon the field with a Knight and a King. Black and white, white and black, checkered with the red stains of old blood. Not even rain could sweep away the dust and the death around them.  
  
The Knight knelt for his King, strong and sturdy and oh-so-foolish. Fools, the both of them.  
  
Donato sighed.  
  
April was the cruellest month.

* * *

…  
  
A Queen stood far from the destruction, turning a ring over in her hands, over and over and-  
  
They had promised. She’d been promised so many times.   
  
“Don’t leave me alone tonight.”  
  
 _(My nerves are bad tonight...)_  
  
She murmured to the sky, blue and endless, nothing like the ground. She knew her words wouldn’t change a thing. She knew they weren’t pretty. They didn’t make the world shake or shiver.  
  
However…  
  
There was a game to be won. Pretty words were easy to manipulate.  
  
Good thing Touka didn’t care for pretty words. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ANONYMOUS:  
> Did you follow "How's this for benediction?" with the poem Benediction from Fleurs Du Mal? Also, "your mother would've cast me into the fire" and "Dear Reader" were also Baudelair references, weren't they?
> 
> Answer:  
> That line came after a couple of stanzas of ‘Benediction’, yes. I’m so hype that somebody caught that!!! Yeah, those lines (and ‘The Poet’) were also referencing Baudelair (the poems ’Benediction’ and ‘To the Reader’). 
> 
> Bonus:  
> The Wasteland lines Haiseneki reads are actually from the poem ‘Death by Water’. Eto’s lines are also from The Wasteland. The bit with ‘chapel perilous’ suited her too well to pass up, since the people under her can’t tell if they are being aided or hindered by a supernatural force due to her machinations.

**Author's Note:**

> The quotes in this chapter are from The Wasteland by TS Eliot. It is a MASSIVE inspiration for this entire fic.


End file.
